


Unloveable

by mystery_deer



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, I like writing younger holt way too much, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues, focuses mainly on holt but kevin is still there it's just holt's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 18:16:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18834094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystery_deer/pseuds/mystery_deer
Summary: “It’s not the end of the world to feel...things.”“What if that was it? My one chance at love. And what if I never get a second chance?”“Well, I understand...It must be very difficult.”_________________Or, Holt remembers being in a very similar situation as Rosa.Or, how Holt's last chance at love wasn't his last chance after all.





	Unloveable

Raymond Holt was not a “loveable” man. That adjective had never been used to describe him across his numerous boyfriends and romantic interests. He had been described as “cool” and “meticulous” and “handsome” and on occasion “a fucking idiot” but the word loveable had never crossed anyone’s lips when speaking of him.   
It was a fact that he internalized without meaning to, like a cut he hadn’t known was there until he discovered the scab. 

Diaz’s conundrum brought him back to his own when he was a young man. Brought him back to his apartment which he had gotten to be as close to his precinct as possible and not for any sort of comfort.   
Home was not a comfort, it was simply a place to replenish himself as best as he could in the few hours he spent not working. Those days had dragged on forever and were gone in the blink of an eye, hellish and nearly unreal to remember. 

He had just been dumped by his boyfriend of two years and felt like he was dying.

“I just feel…” He’d said, in a restaurant of Raymond’s choosing that he would never go to again. “Like...I can’t picture myself being with you forever. I really thought you’d change? And that’s selfish of me I know but I thought maybe you’d warm to me and you…haven’t.” Raymond had nodded and kept his face blank, burying feeling after feeling that bubbled up like balloons being popped.   
Anger. Pop.  
Regret. Pop.  
Sadness. Pop.  
Sadness.  
Sadness.  
Sadness.

“I understand. I hope you have a terrible day.” He'd replied and gotten up, walking from the restaurant at an only slightly faster than average pace. When he’d become aware of his surroundings again he was curled up on the floor of his bedroom sobbing, which was less than ideal.  
Sadness.  
Sadness.  
Sadness.  
Sa- Pop.

That was enough of that, he decided, sitting up. His chest ached, words swirled around him as tangible as the floor (not very).   
“I can’t picture myself being with you forever” was the latest in a long line of sentences that when strung together spelled out; You, Raymond Holt, are unloveable and will always be.

He went to work the next day same as always, the world didn’t stop spinning because of a breakup. Even if you wish it had.  
He was violently unloveable for a month straight before the feeling died down into the undercurrent of his day that lapped at his heels when he had a moment of free time.   
Unloveable was the ground he walked on.  
Unloveable was the air he breathed.

He resigned himself to a life spent alone a few years later. Not ALONE but…with friends. With family. Perhaps it wasn’t in the cards for him to have a romance, maybe some people weren’t meant to. He could live with that. He would just embrace his reputation as a lover. He would see this Him that never smiled and grew ever-older working tirelessly for a future he wasn’t sure would ever come and he would caress his cheek. He would kiss his furrowed brow and he would say in his voice “Hello, this is officer Raymond Holt” when there was a phone call for him.

“Hello, this is Kevin Cozner. I am writing an article for the New Yorker and I was wondering if you were available to answer a few questions regarding-”

On their fifth date Kevin slept over, he didn’t live close to Raymond and they decided that it would be silly to travel all that way. It was late and they both had a day off, why not enjoy it?   
Raymond learned that Kevin slept with his hands together on his stomach or on his side, arms akimbo. He looked perfect as he slept and he wanted badly to kiss him. He wanted to wake up to this sight for a long time.   
Unloveable beat his heart, in morse code.

Kevin said he loved him after being together for two months. People had taken longer to say so, people had taken less time to say so. Kevin said it while laughing at one of Raymond’s jokes, throwing his head back and smiling and then, “My God, I love you!” and he was walking on air. He was floating three, four, five inches above the ground and saying that Kevin had a wonderful laugh. The timing was perfect.

A year later they were in a cafe of Raymond’s choosing that they would go to often when they were in the area. From behind them came “Raymond, is that you?” Him. And his face and his him-ness.   
“Stephano, ah. Yes, hello.” He said, as if he could not hear unloveable in the broken-glass shards of his heart that had stayed crushed into the soles of Stephano’s worker boots. “This is Kevin, my boyfriend.” 

The words felt good to say even though he hadn’t thought he’d ever say them to Stephano. He’d stopped thinking about the man many years ago, especially after meeting Kevin. But here he was…here. At their cafe. That Raymond now wasn’t sure they could come back to.  
“Oh really? Nice to meet you.” Stephano said, looking surprised before melting back into a smile. He hated that about him, that split-second honesty. 

Unloveable was written on the sugar packet that he focused on so as not to look anywhere else.  
“Yes, really.” Kevin said, always quick to pounce on potential rudeness. He extended his hand and Raymond thought, from the corner of his eye, that he looked royal. Stephano took it and shook, apologizing sheepishly. 

“I just never- how long have you been going out?”  
“A little over a year.”   
“Oh that’s-”  
“And I hope that we have many more years to look forward to.” Raymond glanced up from the sugar packet to see Kevin’s eyes boring into Stephano and his hand outstretched onto the table. Raymond took it and squeezed. “It was nice to meet you Stephano.” 

As Stephano walked away quickly, Kevin turned to him and rolled his eyes. Loveable.  
“How long did you two date?”   
“Two years I believe.”  
“We’ll just have to make it four then.” Loveable.  
“We should make it eight, just to be sure.” Loveable.   
“Perhaps we could round it up to ten?” Loveable.  
“That sounds perfectly reasonable.” 

As Kevin kissed him later that evening and said he’d call him when he got home, Raymond Holt listened. He listened to the birds in the trees which sang loveable. He listened to Kevin’s footsteps retreating, his wave and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it smile which screamed loveable. He listened to the pipes in his new apartment, which was further from work but closer to Kevin’s stop on the bus which read loveable. And he felt.

He sat on the couch in his living room and waited for the phone to ring and felt emotions spring up in him like flowers. He was a garden, watered and nourished by love. He treasured each and every budding thought and had no urge to rip even a single one of them up.

The phone rang.

In his office Raymond Holt cried along with Rosa Diaz. He cried for her and for himself. He wished her every bit of happiness that he had and often took for granted now, he wished he could tell her that she deserved it. He wished he could lower the volume on unloveable that was no doubt running loops through her head. Instead he cried, and she cried. And maybe that was enough.


End file.
